January 23, 2013 is seeking a friend for the end of the world. Late Night Computing will keep it company!

THQ officially went under today, having its studios and games auctioned off to a gaggle of bidders that included the likes of Sega, Koch Media, Take Two, and Ubisoft. The most interesting of these, as a real-time strategy fan, is the sale of Relic to Sega. They’ve done a great job with the Total War series, so the potential pairing of Relic with Creative Assembly is something to be excited about. A Total War-type game set in the Warhammer 40k universe, well, just about make my eyes bug out of my face.

News bits:

Steve Jobs allegedly threatened Palm with patent lawsuits if it did not agree to stop its attempts to “poach” employees according to a new court filing. Google, Intel, and other large technology companies also involved. [via Reuters]

Red Box begins its streaming service with a private beta. Want an invite? Sign up here and see if you are accepted! [via Red Box Streaming]

UCLA is developing a new test to help the NFL and its players scan for evidence of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, which is currently only detectable after death. [via Wired]

WibiData is looking for new employees, using a custom Portal 2 mod to test their ingenuity. Check it out! [via WibiData]

Hey, children of the 1990s, come play a round of pogs with Microsoft and Internet Explorer. [via Beta Beat]

Chatty posts of the moment:

Make sure you log-in and check your filters if you can’t see the following:

“Upcoming Nintendo Direct in 20min for all of you Wii U owners, focusing on upcoming games. ” [by atom519]

“DOTA 2. It looks like dotabuff.com will be releasing its own ELO/MMR of sorts on Friday. Is anybody going to bother alt-tabbing pre-match and checking out everyones rating? What does everybody think about it?” [by bongturbo]

Nightly file:

Ensign-1 demo 1.0. “In Ensign-1 you play the role of a space fighter pilot returning from a deep space colonization mission. On arrival back to our own solar system, you find Earth has been colonized by a hostile alien force. It’s now up to you, with the help of your mothership, the Ensign-1, to take it back Ensign-1 allows allows for complete freedom in approaching objectives. You can fight from the safety of your spacecraft, or land and exit to explore space stations and carriers on foot. You can commandeer any spacecraft in the game, no matter how big or how small. Defend an asteroid base, or take the fight to the enemy with a huge mothership, friends manning turrets, it’s your choice. The game also features a multiplayer mode where players can explore a randomly generated galaxy, either fighting co-operatively to clean out enemy fighters, or battling each other for supremacy.” Download the free demo for Windows here.